On Thursday Gerry Brownlee finally released his over-promised revised New Zealand Energy Strategy and Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy. Basically he’s taken two heavyweight strategies put in place by the previous Labour government, both of which were well-informed by evidence and soundly argued, and replaced them with a single, lightweight missive that’s full of contradictions.
Brownlee’s revised strategy places a lot of emphasis on extracting more non-renewables such as coal and gas, whilst at the same time committing to Labour’s goal of 90 percent renewable electricity generation by 2025. In the case of gas, explorers will be looking for a viable domestic market before they go drilling wells, the most likely being gas-fired power plants. How that squares with a target for greater renewable electricity is a mystery to everyone but Mr Brownlee.
Questioned on the lightweight nature of the new document, Brownlee argues detailed plans become ‘quickly out of date’. I guess that’s a telling commentary on the National government’s modus operandi. I wonder whether the draft strategy had to be re-printed at the last minute to accommodate National’s humiliating about-face on mining in National Parks?
After reading through the new draft my question for Gerry Brownlee is pretty simple: Where’s the plan? Aspirational goals are all very well (and the plan is light even on those) but if you have no idea how you’re going to achieve them they’re pretty meaningless.
Gerry and John’s draft energy strategy reads as if they got their expert advice from Jed Clampett of the Beverly Hillbillies. Their idea of somehow magically discovering oil seems straight from 1962 when that show started. The ‘strategy’ certainly doesn’t tap into the knowledge of environmental threats and technology for energy efficiency we now have in 2010.
Their complete and utter lack of vision for sustainability would be a disaster for New Zealand’s environment and its prosperity.
LOL
Minister Brownlee might have well have said that fossil fuels grow on trees.
Biofuel seems a tad misguided to me… diverting corn crops to biofuel is causing corn food shortages in the US…
Re biofuels sourced from corn: I’d like to see a NZ and also wider overseas debate about Fuel versus Food, and the knock-on effects of using food for fuel.
I noticed the US price spike for pork a few years ago when the price of corn went up.
What are the consequences of using crops, which are being used to feed people and livestock, as fuel?
Why can’t they make solar cars?
and the surprise that Gerry deleted. Clare produced something lightweight is?
On a least sarcastic note, it may be time we had a proper debate on energy production that looked at the pros and cons of each fuel more accurately, including biofuels. I for one would be interested in good quality info on each alternative.
does anyone know the world record for the most words used in a legible sequence to say absolutely nothing?
sorry clare
Ethanol is probably the way to go, you don’t need food stuffs
http://www.technologyreview.com/nanotech/17799/
Can use wood chips waste, grasses, anything that has a celluose base. Doesn’t need the high carb sugars of corn. Some technical issues to overcome but they are getting there.
Look at the Brazilian economy around 50% of their fuel is ethanol, this does come from sugar, but soon this will not be necessary.
We are really behind, what is going to happen when the world economy gets going again and oil hits upwards of $150 a barrel again?
To say that explorers need a viable local market for gas before drilling is laughable, world demand for gas is expected rise another 60% by 2030, hundreds of billions of dollars are currently being invested in expending production and that is just to keep pace with expected demand… NZ could have 100% renewable electricity and energy companies will still kill each to explore and exploit viable fields, they’ll pipe the gas to shore, liquify it and export 100% of it if they have to – and they won’t be short of customers…
Brownlee is a dufous IMO though…
JMH quite right, and its not even gas per se, the industrialised world needs energy just to breathe, and more and more of it every year.
As you say, customers will be lining up around the block. I’m sure for instance that China would be quite happy to sign a 20 year purchase contract for lots of PJ if you want.
Good old alcohol aye?
Not just good for a good time 
!
I could beef up production of my Moon Ale and sell some for fuel
Jeremy M Harris – one of the arguments the exploration companies put forward against my private members bill (the one that would have prevented the construction of new power plants that run on non-renewable energy sources) was that gas in the quantities likely to be discovered in NZ was too difficult to export. Therefore it was most economic to explore for it if there was a domestic market, and the best possible domestic market for them is the electricity generators.
C.Hipkins, I bet you China would send the ships here to take the gas off our hands in port, if we wanted them too.
@Chris, methinks they lied because they (and other corporates) don’t want regulation in the energy sector…
As Oil peaks over the next 20 years, the price will rise as gas price is analogue to oil price, the North American fields are running down (in no small part due to tar sand operations)…
A supply in a stable country just accross the Pacific..? The Americans will clammer for it… The Maui field’s gas supply is set to peak in 2013 so we need to get drilling now just for our existing power plants and there is $600,000,000,000 worth of resource under our EEZ’s waters so I believe we will find another sizable field, just don’t let the Todds or a foreign conglomorate buy it this time..!
The food vs fuel issue is a fair enough concern. If corn prices mirror the price of oil (as they have done), how does the use of a relatively small amount of corn as a source of fuel ethanol (instead of going to waste or “low-grade use”, because that’s where most of the corn used for fuel ethaonol come from)hike the price of corn? When corn is used as a fuel source, it creates…. DDGS, which is a source of high protein and supplements suitable for, wait for it… animal feed (the grain without the starch, which cannot be digested by cows).
To grow large amounts of food, and distribute it long distance to consumers, you need what?… fuel. The two are inextricably linked. If farmers could grow their own fuel, would they need much fossil fuel as a source of energy? There is no food vs fuel debate, it’s complete bunk, unless the wrong approch is used, in old ways of thinking. Talk to any permaculturist, any organic farmer, and they’ll tell you a mono-crop approach to producing crops and products is not a sustainable way of doing business. Food and fuel, *can* be grown together, and methods and species of plants and algae *can* be directed at non-food marginal land. Not just ethanol, not just canola, but a solution for every need, and suitable for every environmental niche.
Anyone who thinks we don’t have an immediate and serious problem to face should visit http://inteldaily.com/2010/04/oil-crash/
and then tell me what the alternative is, and the scenario that follows if there isn’t, based on your knowledge of how our scoiety is structured and runs (by what if you need a clue), and human behaviour.
The soulution is easy, but the longer the will to employ the answers not there, the harder it will be to implement all that we need to survive as we know it…
meant to say “The solution is not easy”..! However, with enough will, effort and support, it can, and has to be done.
Hawaii as an island nation faces similar issues, are they sitting around waiting for oil companies or someone else (who??) to find a solution… don’t think so…